


REM Cycles

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Eye Trauma, M/M, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 02:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10452684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: "Everything's fine, Porter."





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Together au started by @potaymgo on tumblr!
> 
> enjoy xoxo

Hugo licks his lips.

His heartbeat is steady. Thrumming in his ears, his blood a tide in the endless circle of his veins. It throbs in his head and it feels like a tension headache would feel but there’s no pain. Only pressure, pure impulse, something half physical and half something else entirely.

He squints. Licks his lips again. Knuckles at his eye. His mouth tastes like metal. He can’t really remember why but it’s not really important either. He grins vacantly.

“Hugo?”

Hugo turns his head to look. His neck is sore for some reason, he can’t move very quickly. He feels kind of used, like he’s been running for hours, like he’d just gotten in a fight. He doesn’t remember doing either but it’s not out of the question. His memory’s been coming and going lately.

Porter’s watching him from the mouth of the alley. He looks kind of nervous, a little uncomfortable. Pale cheeks and wide, soft eyes. It’s been his default expression when looking at Hugo for a while. A little infuriating, maybe. Hugo wants to tell him there’s nothing to worry about. There’s nothing _wrong_.

“You good? We should get back to the bus,” Porter continues when Hugo doesn’t reply.

Hugo nods, head hanging down a little. He’s pretty sure Porter wants him to get up but pulling himself upright seems like such a waste of effort. He stays where he is instead, a twisted crouch against the filthy alley wall, head hanging down until it almost touches his knee. His hair is hanging in his face but he can see Porter’s mouth tightening just fine.

Porter’s scared.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Hugo tells him.

“Okay,” Porter says after a heavy pause. His mouth is still tight. “Do you… D’you need help?”

Hugo blinks at him for a moment and laughs, a little giggling bubble of sound. Heaves himself upright. Porter looks a little relieved when he does.

Hugo glances back, back into the pile of trash he’d been crouching next to. There’s a dark crimson stain spreading against the pavement and Porter can’t see it from where he’s standing but Hugo can taste it, in the air and on his tongue.

He giggles again.

“I’m _fine,_ Porter,” he says and walks to him.

//

“Is it pinkeye?” Porter asks, half joking, crowding into the bus bathroom after him.

Hugo looks at him in the mirror for a second, traces the tight curve of Porter’s mouth with his eyes for a moment. He’s still scared. The fear is lesser now, or maybe more contained, Hugo imagines it must feel more distant away from that dirty alley. It’s a little bit infuriating. Something surfacing in the depths of his gut, annoyance and the taste of metal in his mouth and Porter’s soft, wet eyes mixing into _hunger_.

Porter laughs when Hugo forces a questioning sound out between his teeth. It’s shallow and breathy and nervous but he leans in closer, until the smell of him is thick in Hugo’s nose, and points in the mirror.

Hugo follows his finger and cocks his head. His hair’s been growing into his face for a long, long time but through the strands, thick with stage-sweat and grease, he can see what Porter means.

His eye is bloodshot. Red and dark and unhealthy-looking. His pupil dilating and contracting with a rapidity that’s visible. Jagged, demented movements as he takes the sight in.

He laughs.

“I feel fine, Porter,” he murmurs and turns to usher him out. Hands at Porter’s shoulder and waist, letting him go so reluctantly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Porter lets it go but his mouth goes tight again and his eyes are so big, so scared.

//

The bus sways and he can still taste metal in his mouth.

He’s not sleeping much lately. It doesn’t seem to affect him so much, doesn’t slow him down or throw him off his groove when he’s onstage mixing and throwing the music back and forth with Porter. It’s not really affecting him at all.

He reaches up to run his fingernails over the grooves he’s scratched into the roof of his bunk. Mindless scratching because he’s just kind of _bored_. He digs his nails in and smiles vaguely when a little rain of paint splinters showers down onto him.

There’s still movement on the bus. The driver up front. Someone in the back, almost certainly a roadie, muttering desperately into their phone. Hugo can smell the edge of saline in the air that means there are tears. And Porter is shifting restlessly in his bunk.

Hugo doesn’t really remember why he can do this now. Why he can taste the despair in the air from the crying man, why he can practically feel Porter’s slowing heartbeat against his own lips. It doesn’t really seem to matter so terribly much.

He turns his head against the pillows and listens harder. Breathes in deeply, ignores the organic salt of the man in the back of the bus and focuses on Porter.

He’s awake, but on the edge of sleep. Hugo grins.

Slipping from his bunk is noiseless, landing light on bare feet and pausing for another moment, the curtain flaring out behind him and then settling like a whisper. Moving with the sway of the bus, down to Porter’s bunk and pausing again to listen.

Slow, muffled breathing. Damp, a little loud. Porter’s always been a messy sleeper.

Hugo pulls the curtain back with a quiet rattle and Porte rouses a little with it, dark eyes slitting open, glittering in the dimness. His mouth is pink, dry with sleep, lips parted softly. An expanse of shoulder bared by a shirt several sizes too loose, a curve of neck and Hugo can almost taste the pulse moving so slowly in him.

“Hugo?” he croaks and lifts a clumsy hand to rub at his face, graceless and soft.

Hugo smiles with all his teeth and hauls himself into the bunk.

Porter’s trapped against the wall and for a moment he doesn’t realize it, for a moment he’s squinting in the sudden dark as Hugo’s body blocks the light. Hugo makes no more move, arranges himself in tiny squirms to pen Porter in. He’s radiating sleepy warmth and Hugo basks in it. He’s been feeling a little cold lately.

He realizes in a widening of eyes, pupils dilating a little bit.

“What are you doing?” he asks, still an undertone. A little shaky. There’s fear threading the air between them, something a chemical midpoint of scent and taste. Hugo pulls in a breath through his teeth just to take it in.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he answers. Keeps his voice low. He doesn’t want to wake anyone.

Porter lets him put a hand on his hip. Let’s him inch a little closer. His eyes are falling closed almost like it’s despite himself. He’s so soft, Hugo notices all over again. Soft under his hand, soft scent in the air, soft and vulnerable.

Hugo aches to bite down. Press teeth into the curve of Porter’s neck, his shoulder, lick up the line of his collarbone. Bruise him. Taste him.

“Oh,” Porter murmurs. He’s so tired, slipping down into sleep and fighting every moment. “You okay?”

They both should be this tired. Hugo’s almost uneasy for a moment with it. He should be exhausted. He should be uneasy, invading his best friend’s bunk. It just seems so natural. Nothing to worry about.

“Go to sleep,” Hugo murmurs and moves in an inch, just enough to share Porter’s air. Watches Porter’s eyes slip closed, his breathing calming again already. “Everything’s fine.”


End file.
